Percabeth Drabbles by Don Colacho
by TheChronicler137
Summary: An anthology of short drabbles about Percy and Annabeth, each of which is based on an aphorism from my favourite obscure Colombian thinker, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, also known as Don Colacho. A lot sweeter and less boring than it sounds.
1. Foreword

Foreword

Hello, dear readers. Welcome to my latest project, which basically involves taking a bunch of aphorisms on love from Colmobian scholar/philosopher/thinker Nicolás Gómez Dávila (Don Colacho) and applying each one to our favourite demigod couple in drabble after drabble of pure Percabeth fluffiness.

If you're looking for extremely brief shots of saccharine Percabeth, you've come to the right place, though you should be warned that this is not my regular style. As Don Colacho himself puts it, there are only two "tolerable" ways of writing, long and leisurely, and short and elliptical. I am more used to the former; you can find some fluff of that sort (and some other things) in my other project, _The Demigod Tales_.

But, nonetheless, happy reading!


	2. You

You

**A/N This particular vignette is somewhat longer than the average is supposed to be. Sorry, old habits die hard.**

"_Love is the organ with which we perceive the unmistakable individuality of beings._"

"And—"

Percy's explanation was cut short by the sudden appearance of a stormy-eyed blonde in his path.

"—and this is my girlfriend, Annabeth," Percy said to his companion.

Annabeth glared daggers at her, her eyes practically screaming "_Hands off my Percy!_", but her gaze melted when Percy walked up to her and kissed her.

Percy put his arm around his girlfriend, and she rested her elbow on his shoulder, as he turned around to face the girl he walking with.

The girl bit her lip in discomfort.

"Um, I'll see you tomorrow?"

Percy nodded, and she brisk-walked away.

He turned to Annabeth, smiling.

"You don't _have_ to do that to every girl you see nearby me. You know you'll always have me all to yourself."

She ignored him. "What were you doing with her?" she demanded, scowling at him.

Percy's smile had the audacity to widen.

"Relax, Annabeth. Melanie's just one of my classmates. I was explaining something to her."

Annabeth's scowl melted and she exploded into laughter.

"You, Seaweed Brain?" she choked out, "Explaining something?"

Percy tried to frown at his girlfriend, who was doubled over from laughing at him, but his lips defiantly curled into a smile.

"Well, that's what I get for being completely in love with the smartest girl in the world," Percy told her. "Non-seaweed brains."

Annabeth stopped. Her face was red, partly from laughing so hard, and partly from what Percy said.

As she got up, Percy's fingers curled around her chin, tilting her head up, so that when she was standing up straight again, her lips were perfectly poised for a kiss.

They separated after a few moments, smiling goofily like teenagers in love. Which, of course, they were.

"You don't have to be jealous, you know," he said tenderly, still holding her chin. "I could never feel about anyone the same way I feel about you."

"And why is that?"

And her heart melted as he explained, "Because, Wise Girl, I love _you_. Not your brains. Not your beautiful blonde hair, or your enchanting grey eyes, or your gorgeous face, or your velvety lips. Not all the wonderful times we've had together, all the times I saved your life and you saved mine. Not the fact that you love me back the same way. _You_. Even though I love all those things about you, at the end of the day, it's all because I love _you_. And you are the only person who can be _you_."

Annabeth's lip quivered, as she fought back tears. She'd been discovering more and more of Percy's sweet and romantic side as time went by, but this caught her completely off-guard.

She couldn't hold it in.

She surged into Percy's arms, and let the tears flow down her face and into his shirt, as his hands gently stroked her back.

"I-I love you too, Percy," she whispered.

Those four little words suddenly had a lot more meaning.


	3. Shhhh

Shhhh

"_Love loves the ineffableness of the individual._"

Percy and Annabeth sat by the canoe lake. He leaned against a tree, and she lay in his arms, resting her head on his shoulder.

Percy inhaled and exhaled, taking in the smells of their surroundings, particularly Annabeth's scent. Familiar, and increasingly so as their days as boyfriend and girlfriend went by, but it still gave him goose bumps.

Observing Annabeth had got him thinking, and a random question popped into his head.

"What do I love about you?" he asked. The question was directed at both himself and Annabeth.

To his surprise, his girlfriend responded. She raised her finger without turning her head, jabbing him in the face a little bit before being able to place it on his lips.

"Shhhh," she whisper-hushed.

Percy obliged.

Then she turned around in order to replace her finger with her lips.

She gently pulled away. "I know you know what you love about me. You know I know what I love about you. But we both know that words can't capture it. They would only insult it."

Typically, she would have lost him at the nested 'know's, but, gazing into those familiar intense grey eyes, Percy understood exactly what she was talking about.

"No words," he promised, kissing her again.

And she leaned back into his arms once more, and he continued holding her, as they sat by the canoe lake.

**A/N More to come, people. Stay tuned.**


	4. Understand

Understand

"_To love is to understand the reason God had for creating what we love._"

Annabeth blew her nose into another tissue, and handed it to her boyfriend, who subsequently disposed of it.

Percy held her hand as she sniffed.

Gazing down at his girlfriend, he couldn't help smiling. Even sick as a dog, she looked cute to him.

Annabeth herself managed a smile, despite her condition.

"You know, holding hands carries a greater risk of infection than kissing," she said, her voice nasal.

Percy's eyes twinkled.

"Fine by me," he kissed her.

Percy continued sitting by the sofa which his unwell girlfriend lay on, simply observing her. As requested, he had stopped holding her hand.

It was these moments of tranquillity that they spent together, with him silently admiring her, thinking about all the time they had spent together, and about how much he loved her, that proved most conducive for the gathering of his thoughts into something romantic to say.

"I understand why you're here, you know," he said suddenly.

She smiled again.

"Because I'm sick, and being with my boyfriend always makes me feel better," she reached out and squeezed his hand.

"No, it's not that. I understand the reason why you're here, on Earth. Why you exist at all."

A smile began playing on Annabeth's lips. Whenever he said something weird like that, she knew he was getting ready to say something really romantic.

"Why?"

"Well, I can't put it in words, but…it's in the way your eyes sparkle, and your hair falls around your shoulders. It's in the way you smile and laugh, and it's in all those touches and hugs and kisses you give me. It's in your explanations and battle plans. It's in the ambrosia and nectar you feed me when I get hurt. It's in the words you say to me when I'm down. And it's in the strength I get whenever I see anything that dares to try to hurt you."

He kissed her on the forehead.

"Even if you don't understand it, Annabeth, I do. Because I love you, more than you could ever hope to imagine."

She sat up, studying her boyfriend. She thought of all the times she'd seen his face, heard his voice, felt his skin, inhaled his scent, or tasted his lips. She thought of all the times he'd held her in his arms, and the times he'd talked to her, heart to heart. She thought of all the seaweed-brained stuff he'd done. She thought of all the times he'd put himself in danger for her sake. All the things he'd done for her.

"No," she said, finally.

"I can, because I understand the reason why _you're _here."

She leaned in and kissed him softly.

"And I understand, because I love you."

**A/N The best quote from the books I can use to describe how Annabeth feels about Percy here is, "His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, his hair dusted with cobwebs, but when he locked eyes with her she thought he had never looked more handsome."**

**This one was surprisingly hard to write. I was tempted to make Annabeth mention secret names, which are a close(-ish) approximation to what I'm getting at here. Well, in the end, I suppose I took Don Colacho's advice: "The modern writer forgets that only the allusion to the gestures of love captures its essence."**


	5. Promise

Promise

"_Nothing surpasses the beauty of loyal love, of the love that is not loyalty with love, but the loyalty of love itself._"

With a twist of his wrist, the rogue demigod disarmed Annabeth, sending her knife skittering across the ground.

Percy's eyes widened.

"ANNABETH!" he screamed.

He dashed towards her as his opponent's blade slashed through the spot he had been standing at mere moments ago.

He cast Riptide aside and dashed right at her. He wrapped his arms around her, keeping her arms close to her body, and turning his back to Annabeth's attacker.

The attacker's motion was a downward-stabbing one, but fortunately for him he didn't strike hard enough for the weapon to shatter. Instead, he dragged the tip of his weapon down Percy's back, in a motion that would have left a long, nasty cut had it not been for the curse of Achilles. Annabeth's eyes widened as the trajectory of the demigod's knife passed dangerously close to the small of Percy's back.

Percy whirled around and grabbed the shirt of the demigod, who was off-balance from putting too much force into the strike. He yanked him down and brought his knee up, smashing him in the face so hard he dropped his knife. Then Percy shoved the attacker back, and delivered a powerful right hook which knocked him out cold.

He glared at the unconscious demigod.

"_No-one_ threatens my girlfriend."

He cast a glance at his original opponent, who was fleeing in terror.

Then he turned around to face Annabeth, and she rushed at his lips.

The kiss was surprisingly impassioned and forceful. She threw her arms around Percy and pulled him even deeper into it, pressing herself against him, and he felt his brain disintegrate into mush.

And then she slapped him. Hard.

"Why did you do it?" she angrily interrogated, her eyes brimming.

He gave her one of his familiar trademark sarcastic smirks as he massaged his stinging cheek.

"Percy, you exposed your back to him!" she continued scolding him. "You scared me! He could have hit your…your…"

She disintegrated into tears, burying her face in his shoulder as he stroked her back.

"I was so worried for you, Percy…" she sobbed.

His smile softened into an expression of tenderness.

"I'm your boyfriend. That means I promised to always be there for you. To do anything I could to protect you and keep you safe. And you know I won't ever break the promises I make to you, _especially_ not that one, no matter what it costs me to keep them."

She sniffled as she emerged from his shoulder. They locked eyes, green against grey.

"Because I love you," he said gently.

This time, there wasn't a slap after the long, passionate kiss.

**A/N Somewhat inspired by ~BurstingLight's _MoA Reunion_ on DeviantArt (link in profile).**


	6. Smile

Smile

"_The smile of the being we love is the only effective remedy for tedium._"

Percy flipped to the next page of his textbook, as he lay on his stomach on his bed. He tried to recall what he had just read, but his mind came up fuzzy and mostly blank.

He sighed. Annabeth had explained some of this before. Reading about it again caused her voice to pop into his head, which in turn caused her image to appear before his eyes. This, coupled with his ADHD, all but kidnapped his attention.

He was just about to call her over for a study (which invariably meant smooch-and-cuddle-and-maybe-study-a-little) session, when he heard his door creak open.

He glanced at it. It was slightly ajar.

"Mum? Paul?" he asked.

No reply.

Percy frowned, but, thinking nothing of it, turned back to his book.

"…there is a corresponding change in potential energy," his lips murmured, attempting to get his mind, which was going, "ANNABETH ANNABETH ANNABETH," to focus on the task at hand.

And then, suddenly, he felt a familiar pressure and texture on his lips. The memories of all the times Annabeth's had touched them flashed through his mind.

And then, panic rose in his chest.

_Oh gods, I'm being kissed! Help! Annabeth is gonna kill me!_

But this made no sense. Who was he being kissed by?

Suddenly, he figured it out.

Estimating correctly, he swiped Annabeth's cap off her head, and she materialised in front of him, kneeling so as to be able to access his lips.

She pulled away, smirking, as Percy handed her back the cap.

"Gotcha."

A smile spread across Percy's face too, and he kissed her again.

"Don't wear the cap next time," he advised her.

"Why?"

"Seeing you smile always makes me feel better."

Her smile widened.

"I love you," they said simultaneously.

And they kissed again.

**A/N Inspired by ~BurstingLight's _Invisible_ on DeviantArt (link in profile).**


	7. Alone

Alone

"_Our own cross burdens us less than the one we cannot help our beloved to carry._"

**A/N There can be no more appropriate scene for this aphorism than this one, from MoA.**

** I shall not be so arrogant as to presume myself better at characterising Percabeth than Mr Riordan by changing it.**

Percy didn't want to, but he woke Annabeth. He figured even Coach Hedge wouldn't mind their talking after curfew if it meant giving her information that might save her life.

They stood on deck, alone except for Leo, who was still manning the helm. The guy must have been shattered, but he refused to go to sleep.

"I don't want any more Shrimpzilla surprises," he insisted.

They'd all tried to convince Leo that the skolopendra attack hadn't been entirely his fault, but he wouldn't listen. Percy knew how he felt. Not forgiving himself for mistakes was one of Percy's biggest talents.

It was about four in the morning. The weather was miserable. The fog was so thick, Percy couldn't see Festus at the end of the prow, and warm drizzle hung in the air like a bead curtain. As they sailed into twenty-foot swells, the sea heaving underneath them, Percy could hear poor Hazel down in her cabin…also heaving.

Despite all that, Percy was grateful to be back on the water. He preferred it to flying through storm clouds and being attacked by man-eating birds and enchilada-trampling pegasi.

He stood with Annabeth at the forward rail while he told her about his dream.

Percy wasn't sure how she'd take the news. Her reaction was even more troubling than he anticipated: she didn't seem surprised.

She peered into the fog. "Percy, you have to promise me something. Don't tell the others about this dream."

"Don't _what_? Annabeth—"

"What you saw was about the Mark of Athena," she said. "It won't help the others to know. It'll only make them worry, and it'll make it harder for me to go off on my own."

"Annabeth, you can't be serious. That thing in the dark, the big chamber with the crumbling floor—"

"I know." Her face looked unnaturally pale, and Percy suspected it wasn't just the fog. "But I have to do this alone."

Percy swallowed back his anger. He wasn't sure if he was mad at Annabeth, or his dream, or the entire Greek/Roman world that had endured and shaped human history for five thousand years with one goal in mind: to make Percy Jackson's life suck as much as possible.

"You know what's in that cavern," he guessed. "Does it have to do with spiders?"

"Yes," she said in a small voice.

"Then how can you even…?" He made himself stop.

Once Annabeth had made up her mind, arguing with her wouldn't do any good. He remembered the night three and a half years ago, when they'd saved Nico and Bianca di Angelo in Maine. Annabeth had been captured by the Titan Atlas. For a while, Percy wasn't sure if she was alive or dead. He'd travelled across the country to save her from the Titan. It had been the hardest few days of his life—not just the monsters and the fighting, but the worry.

How could he _intentionally_ let her go now, knowing she was heading into something even more dangerous?

Then it dawned on him: the way he had felt back then, for a few days, was probably how Annabeth had felt for the six months he had been missing with amnesia.

That made him feel guilty, and a little bit selfish, to be standing here arguing with her. She had to go on this quest. The fate of the world might depend on it. But part of him wanted to say: _Forget the world_. He didn't want to be without her.


	8. Why?

Why?

"_Questions only fall silent when faced with love.  
"Why love?" is the only impossible question._"

"Why?"

Annabeth glanced at Percy, arching an eyebrow.

"I still don't get it, Annabeth," he said. "Why did you choose me? You're the most beautiful, talented, smart and amazing girl in the entire camp. You could have gotten any guy you wanted. So why did you pick me?"

"Well, you probably haven't noticed it, but most of the girls in camp _would_ pick you if they were given the choice. You're a hero, you're the camp superstar, and you're insanely _hot_."

Percy gasped, grabbing his chest in mock heartbreak. "That's all there was to our relationship!? I thought what we had was _real_!"

Annabeth smirked, rolling her eyes.

"Oh gods, Seaweed Brain. You know why I picked you. _Of course _it's because I love you."

"But _why_?" he asked in his best whiny five-year-old voice (which was pretty good. No, in fact, nails-on-blackboard-annoyingly good).

She threw her arms around him and kissed him.

"Do I need a reason to love you?"

"No," Percy agreed, "no more than I need a reason to love you."

He pulled her close and kissed her back.

"And you _know _how much I do," he murmured into her lips.


	9. Knowing

Knowing

"_Love is not a mystery but a place where mystery is dissolved._"

"Gotcha!" Percy tackled Annabeth, sending them tumbling onto his bed, both laughing in delight.

They lay, side by side, facing each other. His hands were on her waist and the back of her neck. Her hands were on his shoulders.

He yanked her close and their lips collided. They held each other in blissful silence; lips locked, eyes shut; revelling in the intimacy.

They separated, and then they just lay there for a few more minutes, gazing into each other's eyes, smiling like the happiest demigods in the world.

Percy was swept up in the storm. And Annabeth was drowning in the sea. And both of them loved it.

Both of them loved each other.

"You know those people who say love is a mystery?" she finally said, after spending what felt like an eternity wandering in those sea-green orbs of his.

"Yeah?"

"Liars. All of them. When I lose myself in you, and you know how often that happens, I get closer to you than anyone else ever could. Now no-one in the world knows you better than I do."

"Maybe that's why they say it's a mystery. You know me like that, I know you like that, but we can't tell anyone what we know."

He leaned in and nuzzled her nose with his.

"It's our little secret. A _lovers'_ secret. A lovers' _mystery_."

She smirked, "Since when were we _lovers_, Percy?"

He smiled, and wordlessly replied to that with another kiss.


	10. Love

Love

"_Behind every common noun arises the same common noun with a capital letter: behind love is Love, behind the encounter is the Encounter.  
The universe escapes its captivity when in the individual instance we perceive the essence._"

**A/N Well, Annabeth had explained a very closely related point in _Annabeth Chase and the Son of Poseidon_, in my other, more substantial anthology, _The Demigod Tales._ So here's the relevant excerpt, an internal monologue from her.**

I pictured this, the two of us together in New Rome. It was like a movie scene: I'd be cradling our baby in my arms, and he'd have just come home from doing…well, whatever it was he did to earn our keep in the city. I'd kiss him to welcome him home, then he'd take the baby from me, toss him as he giggled and let him ride on his shoulders. (A/N This particular bit inspired a later one-shot, _Happily Ever After_. You're welcome to check it out)

_That's _the way it should be.

Then I thought back to the battle Percy had described. I imagined us as one of the couples in the city. A monster would smash down the door. I'd be holding the baby, backing into the wall, and Percy would be between us and the threat, heroically facing the thing that dared menace his family, the same way he'd heroically face anything that had dared menace his girlfriend.

And when the danger had passed, I'd dress his wounds, like I had helped Chiron do when I first met him, and so many other times too. And then I'd kiss him, and his eyes would light up, as if that had made all the pain worth it.

The Problem (A/N Of, roughly, Percy being super-protective and Annabeth loving it, though you have to read the original story to really understand the nuances behind it) flared up again, but I shut it down. Gods, it made me sound so _weak_, but I found this scene so – blooming – _sweet_. I wanted to grow old together with Percy, just like that. To play our roles forever: boy and girl, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, father and mother.

And, in that instant, it all became clear. What I felt around Percy wasn't _weakness_. Being a girl wasn't about _weakness_. Letting him protect me wasn't _weakness_. Percy needed me as much as I needed him. We depended on each other. Just in different ways.

We gave reason and meaning to each other's lives. He lived to love me, and I lived to love him. He loved me by protecting me, throwing himself in front of anything that could hurt me, and I loved him by caring for him, soothing him and giving him strength through my touches and kisses. And there wasn't any less courage, strength or sacrifice in my loving Percy that way. I was putting myself out on the line, letting my walls come down, falling back into his arms and trusting him to be there to catch me, devoting myself completely to him. By loving him, I opened myself to his pain. I swore to always be by his side, no matter what the cost. I vowed to be his, and his alone, forever.

And not just that; there were so many other things he relied on me for. I kept his feet on the ground, handled intellectual problems, and had a plethora of useful skills that he didn't. We complemented each other, like pieces of a puzzle; always better together. A team, as Percy had told me quite a few times, and not just when it came to questing and fighting.

I finally recognised the Problem for what it really was: hubris, my fatal flaw. I _couldn't_ do everything by myself. I _needed_ Percy, as much as he needed me. My pride kept telling me I was better than everyone than everything, that I needed to prove it to the world, and that I couldn't just let go and let Percy love me. _Percy_, who had told me again and again how perfect I was.

_As long as we're together, nothing even matters, but the two of us. Forget about how the world sees me. It all stops when he puts his arms around me anyway._

At long last, I had finally made peace with that thought.

And, just like that, the Problem vanished – forever. I resolved to be Percy's girl; to let him take my hits for me, protect me from harm, and sacrifice himself for me, like a proper boyfriend should, and to let him touch me, and hold me, and kiss me, and love me. To give him someone to live and fight for. And I would love him back, share his joy and his pain, give him whatever he needed me to, whenever he needed me to, and always be there for him. He'd be the prince and I'd be the princess, because it was, as Aphrodite had put it before, a love story. _Our_ love story. I loved him, and he loved me.

_That_ was what it meant for a boy and a girl to love each other. _That_ was what it meant to be together.

**A/N "They kissed, and for a moment, nothing else mattered." – _The Mark of Athena_**

** "A simple kiss with her boyfriend was enough to give her a glimpse of infinity." – _Percy Jackson and the Lovers' Mist, The Demigod Tales_**


End file.
